July 2011 Reading Wrap-Up

Jul 312011

So I had a good reading month, thanks largely to the week where my husband was away and it was too hot to do anything besides lay around and read after Daniel went to bed. I finished listened to 6 audiobooks for almost 60 hours (commutes, plus hours each night just trying to cool off to even be able to turn pages), and read over 4600 pages in 14 books. Below you will find the books I reviewed this month, followed by my pick of the month and the other books read this month and not yet reviewed.

What I Reviewed:

Audiobooks
The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester, narrated by Simon Winchester
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, narrated by Hope Davis
Snakewoman of Little Egypt by Robert Hellenga, narrated by Colleen Marlo (?)
The Sweet Relief of Missing Children by Sarah Braunstein, narrated by Xe Sands
Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans, narrated by Kirsten Potter

Fiction
The White Devil by Justin Evans
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
Tethered by Amy MacKinnon

Mystery
The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay

Historical Fiction
Incognito by Gregory Murphy
The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson

Young Adult Fiction
Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
Words by Heart by Ouida Sebestyen

Nonfiction/Memoir
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

Saturday Story Spotlight
The Alphabet Book by P.D. Eastman
Melvin and the Boy by Lauren Castillo
Jack and the Beanstalk by Nina Crews
The Lost and Found Pony by Tracy Dockray
Curious George and the Pizza by Margaret and A.H. Rey

Other Posts:
Authors Helping Authors, an Interview with Authors Kim Wright and Sarah Pekkanen
Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None Discussion
BOOK CLUB – The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson

Me, Elsewhere:
Book Blogger Q&A on The Book Base
Gone With the Chunksters on The Heroine’s Bookshelf
Working With Book Bloggers on Blurb is a Verb
Whats Old is New Episode 13: Interview with Nina Sankovitch, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair
What’s Old is New Episode 14 – Season 1 Wrap Up

Pick of the Month:

Tethered1 picture

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon

Curious George and the Pizza – Saturday Story Spotlight

Jul 302011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Curious George and the Pizza by Margret Ray and H.A. Ray
Published by HMH Books

When George and his friend go to a pizza parlor, George is absolutely fascinated by the tossing of the pizza dough and the making of the pizzas. When he tries to make some pizzas on his own, though, a huge mess ensues. The owner of the pizza parlor is pretty angry, until he has to deliver a pizza to a factory which is already closed, at which point George’s monkey skills save the day.

A monkey and pizza! What more could Daniel want?

Really, there’s nothing particularly special about Curious George and the Pizza, but it is a crowd-pleaser in this house. My favorite reason to read it with Daniel is for the identification of facial expressions. When the pizza parlor owner is frustrated to the point of tears, Daniel points at him and yells “crying!” Between this and just the joy of reading, Curious George and the Pizza is a frequent visitor to our storytimes.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans – Audiobook Review

Jul 292011

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans, narrated by Kirsten Potter
Published in print by Random House, published in audio by Tantor Media

Synopsis:

In Apollo’s Angels, Jennifer Homans tells the story of 400 years of ballet’s history, a history which, until now, has been unwritten.

Thoughts on the story:

Ballet is ballet is ballet. Or so I thought, before reading Apollo’s Angels. I had no idea that there were national differences even today, or that political movements such as the French and Russian Revolutions were so expressed through the art of ballet. Weighing in at almost 700 pages in print and close to 24 hours in audio, Apollo’s Angels is certainly a commitment, but it is a pleasant one. Homan succeeds in writing a book which is informative about the history of ballet and the way that ballet serves as a mirror of social and political history, while at the same time is not overly technical. There were certainly passages here and there that lost me briefly talking about specific steps, but even though I have not taken ballet since I was five years old, I was never lost for long, and was engaged enough to stick through those technical sections to return to the history.

The one place Homan did lose me was at the very end, in which she makes an argument for the disappearance of ballet in the near future which does not seem to be hinted at or backed up in any way by the 600 odd pages that precede it. Still, though, it was a very short passage in comparison with the rest of the book, and was not enough to permanently leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Kirsten Potter did an absolutely lovely job narrating Apollo’s Angels, the casting was really just perfect for the book. For my full thoughts on the audio, please see my review for Audiofile Magazine.

soundbytes picture Overall:

I was more interested in Apollo’s Angels for the social and cultural history than for the ballet itself, but ballet was a fascinating way to impart this history. I think this would work well in print or audio, although I don’t think I’d have done as well with it in print, as I would likely have gotten bogged down in the technicalities of dance. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

I’m launching a brand-new meme every Friday! I encourage you to review any audiobooks you review on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon – Book Review

Jul 282011

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon
Published by Broadway, an imprint of Random House

Three years ago, a young, unidentified girl was found sexually abused and dead, another body for Clara to prepare. Clara, who survived her own childhood only by the grace of a God she no longer believes in. The one place Clara was able to find solace as a child was in the funeral home where her mother’s wake was held, although she still had to hold herself at a remove from those around her to function, touching only the dead. When a young girl named Trecie begins hanging around the funeral home Clara’s first reaction is annoyance, which is quickly replaced by worry, when it becomes apparent that Trecie may be involved with the same people who murdered Precious Doe.

Tethered has some hallmarks of a mystery: the main character becomes involved to a certain degree with a law enforcement officer and tries to solve a crime before someone else gets hurt. What Amy MacKinnon has done with Tethered, though is so much more. She has created a beautiful literary and psychological novel with the interest value of an extremely compelling mystery. Clara’s character is particularly interesting. Her own childhood abuse gives her a rich, complicated persona, which lends depth to the storyline. Equally deep and deliciously complicated is MacKinnon’s writing.

I’ve often thought there’s something reptilian about Mike’s eyes. No, not the coldness, it’s more about the layers. There’s a certain ambiguous quality to them. Like an alligator before it slips underwater, hiding its intent beneath the transparent shield that covers the cornea, allowing the animal to see as it protects itself from harm. It’s the same with Mike.

Tethered is a beautiful, occasionally painful novel and an absolutely compelling read. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Library.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Words by Heart by Ouida Sebestyen – Book Review

Jul 272011

Words by Heart by Ouida Sebestyen
Published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House

Lena is determined that she is going to win the school’s Bible verse recitation. As the only African American student in the school, a member of the only non-white family in town, she knows that, as much as most members of the town are not hostile towards her and her family, they only see her skin color and not her mind. Getting what you wish for is not always a good thing, though. Between Lena’s success over the white male student who everyone thought was a shoe-in and her father rising in the estimation of his employer, racial tensions begin to surface in their small town. Now, Lena must decide whether she believes in vengeance or forgiveness.

Words by Heart is a great look at faith and racism for young readers. Sebestyen walks a line very well of not shying away from the realities of hatred and the negative consequences, without writing a book too overwhelming for middle grade readers. Largely this is done by the strong message of faith and forgiveness. Lena’s father, in particular, is a proponent of forgiveness and attempts to teach her to forgive as he tries to do.

This is the sort of book I wish I had found when I was younger. While I could definitely appreciate both the story and the message, I know it would have meant quite a bit more to me if I had approached it as a pre-teen. I’m glad I read it, though, if for no other reason than that now I know about it to read with my own children when they are at an age to learn about the horrors of hatred and freedom of forgiveness.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

BOOK CLUB – The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson

Jul 262011

5256159881 7ba9c432e6 m picture Welcome to BOOK CLUB, which I run with co-conspirator Nicole from Linus’s Blanket. Today we will be chatting about The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson, which was released at the end of June from Other Press (website | twitter | facebook). For those of you reading this post, please remember that this discussion is likely to contain spoilers.

Here is the synopsis of the book I wrote for my review:

When a young, pregnant woman, Lillie, is found floating dead in Richmond’s reservoir, the cause of death is originally thought to be suicide, but soon the evidence piles up so that murder is suspected. Before too long, the police pick up Lillie’s cousin Tommie, with whom she had been having a fling. As it becomes more and more obvious that Tommie was with Lillie the night she died, he is put on trial for her murder, his own life hanging in the balance.

theresevoir picture Before we get started, here are some of the reviews of readers who will be participating today:

Caribou’s Mom
Devourer of Books
House of the Seven Tails
Indie Reader Houston
Linus’s Blanket
That’s What She Read

If you plan on participating in today’s BOOK CLUB, please consider subscribing to comments at the bottom of the page (please use the TOP subscription option, the second option will subscribe you only to replies of your own comments). I will be updating this post with new questions and ideas over the course of the day.

Here we go…

First off, what were your general impressions of the book?
Is this a book you would have read had you not been reading it for a book club?
I suspect some people will be put off by the distant language. Did you find yourself able to engage with the story and characters?
Fictionalizing true crime can be difficult. Do you think that Thompson struck a good balance between the different genre elements of his story?
Richmond reacted quite strongly to Lillie’s death and Tommie’s accusation. What does their reaction tell us about the mood of the town post-Civil War? Was the level of engagement a believable part of the story for you?
Thompson tells Tommie’s story by alternating between the storyline of the trial and his earlier life and interactions with Lillie. Was this method effective?
Do you believe Tommie’s final story of what happened to Lillie? If not, what do you think really happened?

12 review copies of The Reservoir were provided by Other Press in order to facilitate this discussion. Thank you!

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None discussion

Jul 252011

This is part of the Cool Down With Agatha Christie summer extravaganza. Three participants in today’s discussion will win a copy of next month’s readalong book, Ordeal by Innocence, as well as an Agatha Christie mystery prize pack. Next month we will be reading Ordeal by Innocence, if you would like to join us, please sign up on the Google form.

andthentherewerenone picture

The beginning of the newly released edition of And Then There Were None begins with an Author’s Note which is really a section on And Then There Were None from Agatha Christie’s autobiography that is simply fascinating:

I had written this book because it was so difficult to do that the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made of it. It was clear, straightforward, baffling, and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation; in fact it had to have an epilogue in order to explain it. It was well received and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been.

What were your general impressions of the book?
And Then You Were None is probably one of Christie’s most famous works, and almost certainly her best-known standalone. Was this your first experience with this book? If so, was it on your radar before this? If not, how did it hold up on the reread?
As Christie referenced in her autobiography, And Then There Were None is perhaps the ultimate in locked door mysteries. Did you have any idea who the culprit was or how he or she manufactured the crime? Who did you initially suspect, and did that change as the book progressed?
Even though I had read this before and remembered the basic outline – and before long even the murderer – And Then There Were None terrified me in a way that none of Christie’s other books have. Did you find it particularly frightening? What about it lends itself to palpable fear (if, indeed, you believe it does)?
What was your opinion of the use of the device of the epilogue to solve the murder, when nobody else was able to do so?

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Ordeal By Innocence giveaway

Jul 252011

AC ReadingGroup TileAds StandAlones picture If you are interested in discussing Ordeal by Innocence with us on Monday, August 25th2nd and still need a copy, sign up on the Google form below and five winners will be selected at random.

If you’re interested to see how the discussion work, please check out last month’s discussion of Endless Night.

ordealbyinnocence picture

US and Canada mailing addresses only, please. Enter by midnight Central time on Wednesday, June 27th.

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TSS – Melting

Jul 242011

Hey, remember those huge dumps of snow we had back in February? Yeah, I’m ready to bring those back after this week. I’ll take the annoyance of coats/hats/scarves/gloves over being perpetually hot ANY day. Winter chills can be taken care of by getting in a hot bath with wine and a book. A cold bath is not so nice for reading.

On the other hand, there is a slight advantage to it being beastly hot, and that is that reading is the only thing that sounds remotely appealing. My husband was away on business last week, so it was just Daniel and I, and we had dinner with family every night. Other than the night when Daniel stayed with my dad and my mom and I went to see Harry Potter, Daniel and I would get home most nights just in time to put him to bed. Now, our air conditioning is in good condition, but our condo is old and our windows inefficient, which means that it can be tough to cool the place down, which, in turn, meant that I had no desire to turn on a computer and add any more heat to the house, which also precluded watching tv.

When it was just too hot even to flip pages, I laid on top of my bed listening to an audiobook and playing games on my phone until it cooled down. After that, I would pick up a book and read, often until well after midnight when it was finally cool enough to get to sleep. The upshot is that I finished quite a few books (and am now even farther behind on reviews):

theresevoir picture sorcerersstone picture madamebovarysdaughter picture andthentherewerenone picture deadendinnorvelt picture wordsbyheart picture thetearose picture Tethered1 picture

Luckily, I had quite a few things prescheduled this week, so there was content here, even though I had no desire to sit with a computer on my lap. One particularly interesting thing was an interview between authors Kim Wright and Sarah Pekkanen discussing social media and the ways in which authors help one another. In addition to that, were a number of reviews:

The Lost and Found Pony – Saturday Story Spotlight

Jul 232011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

The Lost and Found Pony by Tracy Dockray
Published by Feiwel & Friends, an imprint of Macmillan

The eponymous and unnamed pony is small, but she (or possibly he, along with being unnamed she is never explicitly given a gender, but let’s just make her a she for the sake of argument) is perfectly happy with herself. That happiness is even more pronounced when she is given to a young girl as a birthday present. She and the girl are a perfect match, until one day it becomes apparent that the girl has outgrown her, and the girl’s parents replace our dear pony with a larger horse.

The pony is sold off to the circus, which is not a bad life, but she misses the girl each and every day. Still, life goes on – until the circus begins to lose money and the animals are sold off. This is perhaps the scariest time in our pony’s life, but it results in a reunion with her girl, now all grown up.

This is just a lovely book. Dockray’s illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to reach into the book and stroke the pony’s muzzle in the early pages. The circus illustrations are particularly vibrant, the ones of the circus’s dissolution still beautiful but tinged with despair. The story is incredibly sweet as well. The pony knows love and won’t give up on it, but also makes the best of the situation at hand. Her reunion with her long-lost girl makes me go “awww.”

My only real problem with The Lost and Found Pony – which is not a fault of the book itself, but evidence of a slight mismatch between the book and my family – is the fact that it is far too long for even my book-obsessed two year old’s attention span. Although I assumed she would be reunited with the girl, I never actually made it all the way through until I reread it prior to writing this review. Still, he enjoys the half or so of the book he’ll sit through, and absolutely adores the pictures (horsey! elephant!).

The Lost and Found Pony will definitely be keeping a place in our permanent collection, so we can continue to revisit it as Daniel grows older and can perhaps even sit through to the ending.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Review copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Older Entries

Devourer of Books

July 2011 Reading Wrap-Up

What I Reviewed:

Pick of the Month:

Other Books Read, Watch for Reviews:

Curious George and the Pizza – Saturday Story Spotlight

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans – Audiobook Review

Tethered by Amy MacKinnon – Book Review

Words by Heart by Ouida Sebestyen – Book Review

BOOK CLUB – The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None discussion

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Ordeal By Innocence giveaway

TSS – Melting

The Lost and Found Pony – Saturday Story Spotlight

Sponsors:

Shelf Awareness for Readers eNewsletter

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Recognition

Regular Features/Special Events

Check Me Out

What I Reviewed:

Pick of the Month:

Other Books Read, Watch for Reviews:

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Sponsors:

Shelf Awareness for Readers eNewsletter

Recognition

Regular Features/Special Events

Check Me Out